Backwoods with Tim

May 19, 2004|By TIM RESH, For the Daily American

It doesn't get any better than sitting on mother earth leaning up against a tree and watching the morning dawn at 6 a.m. Now if you are not a mountainman, you can still have this experience in your own lawn' some morning. Try it but watch out. You could get some funny looks from the newspaper delivery person or maybe a growl as the neighbor dog looks at his favorite tree that you are leaning against. Anyway after you experience this a few times, you will understand the feeling and pretty soon yearn for Penn's Woods. It is habit forming.

The spring gobbler stories are everywhere. There are many that have filled their tag and there are many that are still trying to. Roy is one of those still trying to fill his tag. It is not that he hasn't heard a few gobbles during the season. The gobble has just not come close enough. His first morning in Penn's Woods started out on a positive note as he got a response from his call just after daybreak. The only problem was that when the longbeard hit the ground from his resting place it wasn't heard from again. Needless to say the morning went down hill from there. His second day afield was going a little better until the gobbler met up with a couple of hens en route to Roy's position. That gobbler was never heard from again.

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Following his third day out he gave me a call. The morning was very warm and Roy could feel that there was moisture in the air, but it was still up in the air. Just as the morning dawned, he started to call. He got two responses. Both were pretty far away, but that didn't discourage him. He called again and the one to the north answered him again. This time it seemed to be closer. Roy continued to call off and on. With each call the bird from the north responded. Then all of a sudden the moisture in the air started to hit the ground. Roy covered his call and remained motionless as the gortex kept him dry. The hard shower soon quit. He knocked the moisture off his hat and went back to calling. After a while following no responses, Roy started to think that maybe today would be like the others so he started to plan for next week's hunt. (A mountainman is always thinking.)

Roy decided to call once more. If he didn't get a response, he was going to change trees. He left out a call and before he could relax his hand, he got a response not 50 yards away in the greenbriers. He waited a little then slowly left out a short, quiet call. Another response came from the same area. As he looked toward the area of the response he could see two paths through the briars. Both of them came out into the small open area where he was located. Thirty steps was the range for the shotgun he was using. He figured that if the bird came out either path it would be within his range. A few more calls followed by a few more responses. It seemed like the gobbler wasn't changing its position at all. Then all of a sudden he saw movement on the one path. The bird came into view very slowly and when it did it filled up the width of the path. What a showoff Roy thought. Roy slowly moved his shotgun into position. As he did there came a call off to his right that made shivers run up and down his spine. It came from a caller-in-training a.k.a. someone that should have practiced more before the season. Roy's gobbler reacted negatively to the other caller. It turned and went back down the path into the briars.

Roy relaxed his hold on the shotgun and relaxed for a few minutes. While he did the other caller seemed to move off in a different direction. Hopefully the other caller was just passing through were his thoughts. Then Roy called again hoping the situation wasn't terminal, After a few minutes, his bird answered. He readied himself and spaced his calls to try to lure the bird back. Roy was focused on the paths in front of him when all of a sudden the same path filled up once again. This time Roy was really ready and had recalculated his steps. When the longbeard stopped, he squeezed the trigger. The bird went motionless. Roy got up, walked the 35 steps, and picked up the longbeard. It had a 10-inch beard and spurs 1 1/4 inches long. Roy was pleased that he was able to fill his tag.